Dead From The Inside Out
by Merenwen Luinwel
Summary: Hermione writes Harry a letter telling him how she feels before she leaves the next morning. When Harry reads it he runs after her, but will he get her?


Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and anything associated with him.  
  
Dead From the Inside Out  
  
How did it ever come to this? The sneaking glances. The heavy sighs when he walks around with another girl. The anger when he kisses another girl.  
  
How did the intelligent Hermione Granger, the one with all the answers, be so clueless?  
  
How did she fall in love with her best friend?  
  
The one who saved her life in the bathrooms in first year.  
  
The one who stood up for her.  
  
The one that she never left, even in peril.  
  
The one she had thought that she would always love as a friend and only a friend.  
  
The one who in her opinion was worth dying for.  
  
So why does she sit there in front of the fire, working on her potions essay, watching him snuggle with his girlfriend?  
  
So why does she give heavy sighs every time he asks another girl out?  
  
So why does she sit there, playing the role of dutiful best friend, when she could be more?  
  
Because he would never love her in that way.  
  
She knew this.  
  
Ron loved her like that.  
  
Harry didn't.  
  
She said no to Ron because she was holding onto the slight hope that Harry would notice her, by his side, his best friend.  
  
But as the days slipped by the hope slighted. Until there was nearly none at all.  
  
And as she sat there in front of the fire, working on her potions essay, she made a final decision.  
  
She would tell him.  
  
In a letter.  
  
That she would leave by his head while he slept.  
  
So that when he woke the next morning, he would know.  
  
But by then it would be too late.  
  
She would be gone.  
  
Cause today was graduation.  
  
And after today she could disappear and never face him again.  
  
She wouldn't sit there in front of the fire, working on her potions essay, watching him snuggle up with his girlfriend, soon to be fiancée. She couldn't.  
  
She would pour out her heart and then never look at him again, because just knowing she told him was worth it.  
  
Worth the heartache of knowing she could never have him.  
  
Worth the pain of living on her own.  
  
Knowing that she could never love another.  
  
She would write it and disappear.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
As he sat there with his girlfriend on his knee, he wondered how it came to this.  
  
How he snuck glances at her. Watched her chew her bottom lip with a frown on her face in concentration. Watched her brush back her hair from her eyes for the umpteenth time. Watch her chestnut eyes darken when she came across something she didn't know. Watch her long, curved, lashes brush against her cheeks when she thought of something she forgot.  
  
How he longed to sit next to her with his arm around her shoulder. Helping her. Showing her. Loving her.  
  
How he longed to brush the hair back himself.  
  
How he longed to kiss her lips and throw away all her concentration.  
  
How he longed to stare into her chestnut eyes.  
  
But he couldn't.  
  
She didn't love him.  
  
She did, but not that way.  
  
To her she would always be the best friend by her side.  
  
The one who saved her life in the first year.  
  
The one who stuck up for her because he couldn't stand to see her hurt.  
  
The one who she stood by, no matter what.  
  
The one who would step in front of her and take a curse for her, even if it meant dying.  
  
He had loved her since as long as he could remember.  
  
He couldn't remember when the love like a sister turned into the love of a possible girlfriend.  
  
He was happy when he said no to Ron.  
  
He couldn't stand to know that Ron had what he wanted over anything in the world. That Ron finally had something Harry didn't. Something more important to Harry than his broom or his fame.  
  
The worst way to die is to sit next to someone and know you can't have them.  
  
Harry knew all about that.  
  
Sitting next to Hermione with his girlfriend on the other side of him.  
  
Knowing that he never loved them the way her loved her.  
  
Knowing they were just an unsuitable replacement for her.  
  
Knowing that they would never measure up to a woman like her.  
  
He watched her in front of that firelight. Watched her finish her essay with a flourish before standing up and leaving.  
  
She didn't even say goodnight before going up to her dorm.  
  
She knew he probably wanted privacy with his girlfriend. But he would have given anything to hear her voice for the night.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
Dear Harry,  
  
By the time you read this, I will have gone and you will never have to see me again.  
  
What I am about to say may shock you. I love you.  
  
Not the way you probably love me. Over the years I have fallen in love with you. So much it hurts me to see the pain on your face every time you have a nightmare. So much that I can't stand to be around you when you're with your girlfriends.  
  
Because you're killing me from the inside out.  
  
Not intentionally of course. But it's happening.  
  
Ron knows and he trys to help. But he doesn't. He only makes things worse.  
  
As you marry your girlfriend and walk down the aisle, remember one thing.  
  
There will always be a woman in the world that will love you no matter what.  
  
Don't try to find me, you won't.  
  
Don't try to write me. I won't write you back.  
  
I'm already shamed enough as it is.  
  
I love you,  
  
Hermione  
  
Hermione let her tears fall freely as she wrote this. The ink was running in a few places but she didn't care.  
  
She sealed it. And as she sealed it, she sealed her life alone.  
  
She picked up her trunk and bags and took one last look around her dorm.  
  
The place where she had spent many nights crying herself to sleep because she knew she couldn't have Harry.  
  
The place where she had many of her most wonderful memories.  
  
She walked out of the door and down the hall to Harry's dorm. She slowly opened the door and peeked in at the sleeping boys.  
  
She tiptoed over to where Harry slept and placed the letter next to his head.  
  
It was early in the morning and it would be hours before Harry woke. Giving her enough time to get to Hogsmede and catch the early train home.  
  
She turned to leave but looked at his lips.  
  
The lips she longed to kiss.  
  
And she did.  
  
She leaned forward and placed a feather light kiss on his lips.  
  
Then she turned and ran.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
Harry woke when she kissed him.  
  
He rolled over and saw the letter that lay next to him.  
  
In Hermione's neat cursive she wrote the things he longed to hear.  
  
At first her thought it was a prank.  
  
But then her saw the tear stains.  
  
And he knew this was true.  
  
What I am about to say may shock you. I love you.  
  
Shock him? He fell off his bed.  
  
All this time she loved him right back and he had never been the wiser.  
  
Because you're killing me from the inside out.  
  
He was killing her by having those girlfriends around them all the time.  
  
And he had never known.  
  
He had always thought her expressions were from hard problems she needed to solve.  
  
Not because she loved him and couldn't bear to watch him with his girlfriends.  
  
As you marry your girlfriend and walk down the aisle, remember one thing.  
  
There will always be a woman in the world that will love you no matter what.  
  
He didn't want to marry his girlfriend any more. She loved him and he wanted to be with her.  
  
Don't try to find me, you won't.  
  
Don't try to write me. I won't write you back.  
  
I'm already shamed enough as it is.  
  
She had suffered the entire time and now she was gone.  
  
He had to stop her.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
Hermione passed her ticket to the man standing on the sidewalk. She started up the steps to her seat but stopped.  
  
She looked back at the way she had come.  
  
Hoping to see him.  
  
Hoping he would come after her and tell her not to go.  
  
But it was too late.  
  
She was going and nothing could stop her. Not anyone.  
  
Not even him.  
  
As she shut the door and took her seat she heard a yell.  
  
Harry.  
  
He was running down the sidewalk.  
  
Chasing after the already moving train.  
  
Her window was open and she could hear everything he was yelling.  
  
"Hermione! Don't leave!"  
  
"Hermione! Come back!"  
  
"Hermione!"  
  
She started to lose interest and almost missed the last thing he said.  
  
"I love you."  
  
Hermione started to cry again.  
  
But she didn't get off the train.  
  
She didn't yell back.  
  
She just sat there and cried.  
  
For years she didn't do anything.  
  
She never went back to him.  
  
She never read his letters.  
  
She sent them back unopened.  
  
But he wouldn't give up.  
  
The years went by and finally he got a letter from Ron.  
  
Saying she was dead.  
  
She had died and the young age of 23.  
  
For five years he knew she loved him.  
  
And for five years he had been trying to talk to her.  
  
That night she died in the car crash.  
  
She was on her way to see him.  
  
To talk to him.  
  
To see if it was true.  
  
To see if he really did love her.  
  
She hadn't felt a thing, the paramedics said.  
  
She died on impact.  
  
That night she was going to ask Harry to be her boyfriend.  
  
But she hadn't lived long enough to ask him.  
  
Ginny had told him this.  
  
Harry now wore a ring on his marriage finger.  
  
Because she, to him, was his wife.  
  
He was widowed.  
  
With no children and no wife.  
  
Without the woman he loved.  
  
And he now knew what she meant by:  
  
Because it's killing me from the inside out. 


End file.
